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npx skills add anthropics/skills --skill pdf

Documentation

SKILL.md

npx skills add ...

Documentation

SKILL.md

Use this skill whenever the user wants to do anything with PDF files. This includes reading or extracting text/tables from PDFs, combining or merging multiple PDFs into one, splitting PDFs apart, rotating pages, adding watermarks, creating new PDFs, filling PDF forms, encrypting/decrypting PDFs, extracting images, and OCR on scanned PDFs to make them searchable. If the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to produce one, use this skill.

npx skills add anthropics/skills --skill pdf

Documentation

SKILL.mdView source

PDF Processing Guide

Overview

This guide covers essential PDF processing operations using Python libraries and command-line tools. For advanced features, JavaScript libraries, and detailed examples, see REFERENCE.md. If you need to fill out a PDF form, read FORMS.md and follow its instructions.

Quick Start

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
 
# Read a PDF
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
 
# Extract text
text = ""
for page in reader.pages:
    text += page.extract_text()

Python Libraries

pypdf - Basic Operations

Merge PDFs

from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader
 
writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.pdf", "doc3.pdf"]:
    reader = PdfReader(pdf_file)
    for page in reader.pages:
        writer.add_page(page)
 
with open("merged.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Split PDF

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
    writer = PdfWriter()
    writer.add_page(page)
    with open(f"page_{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as output:
        writer.write(output)

Extract Metadata

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
meta = reader.metadata
print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
print(f"Author: {meta.author}")
print(f"Subject: {meta.subject}")
print(f"Creator: {meta.creator}")

Rotate Pages

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
 
page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90)  # Rotate 90 degrees clockwise
writer.add_page(page)
 
with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction

Extract Text with Layout

import pdfplumber
 
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        text = page.extract_text()
        print(text)

Extract Tables

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages):
        tables = page.extract_tables()
        for j, table in enumerate(tables):
            print(f"Table {j+1} on page {i+1}:")
            for row in table:
                print(row)

Advanced Table Extraction

import pandas as pd
 
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    all_tables = []
    for page in pdf.pages:
        tables = page.extract_tables()
        for table in tables:
            if table:  # Check if table is not empty
                df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
                all_tables.append(df)
 
# Combine all tables
if all_tables:
    combined_df = pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True)
    combined_df.to_excel("extracted_tables.xlsx", index=False)

reportlab - Create PDFs

Basic PDF Creation

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
 
c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=letter)
width, height = letter
 
# Add text
c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
c.drawString(100, height - 120, "This is a PDF created with reportlab")
 
# Add a line
c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)
 
# Save
c.save()

Create PDF with Multiple Pages

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, PageBreak
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
 
doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf", pagesize=letter)
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
story = []
 
# Add content
title = Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title'])
story.append(title)
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
 
body = Paragraph("This is the body of the report. " * 20, styles['Normal'])
story.append(body)
story.append(PageBreak())
 
# Page 2
story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1']))
story.append(Paragraph("Content for page 2", styles['Normal']))
 
# Build PDF
doc.build(story)

Subscripts and Superscripts

IMPORTANT: Never use Unicode subscript/superscript characters (₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉, ⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹) in ReportLab PDFs. The built-in fonts do not include these glyphs, causing them to render as solid black boxes.

Instead, use ReportLab's XML markup tags in Paragraph objects:

from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
 
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
 
# Subscripts: use <sub> tag
chemical = Paragraph("H<sub>2</sub>O", styles['Normal'])
 
# Superscripts: use <super> tag
squared = Paragraph("x<super>2</super> + y<super>2</super>", styles['Normal'])

For canvas-drawn text (not Paragraph objects), manually adjust font the size and position rather than using Unicode subscripts/superscripts.

Command-Line Tools

pdftotext (poppler-utils)

# Extract text
pdftotext input.pdf output.txt
 
# Extract text preserving layout
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt
 
# Extract specific pages
pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt  # Pages 1-5

qpdf

# Merge PDFs
qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf
 
# Split pages
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 6-10 -- pages6-10.pdf
 
# Rotate pages
qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1  # Rotate page 1 by 90 degrees
 
# Remove password
qpdf --password=mypassword --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf

pdftk (if available)

# Merge
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf
 
# Split
pdftk input.pdf burst
 
# Rotate
pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf

Common Tasks

Extract Text from Scanned PDFs

# Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image
import pytesseract
from pdf2image import convert_from_path
 
# Convert PDF to images
images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')
 
# OCR each page
text = ""
for i, image in enumerate(images):
    text += f"Page {i+1}:\n"
    text += pytesseract.image_to_string(image)
    text += "\n\n"
 
print(text)

Add Watermark

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
 
# Create watermark (or load existing)
watermark = PdfReader("watermark.pdf").pages[0]
 
# Apply to all pages
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
 
for page in reader.pages:
    page.merge_page(watermark)
    writer.add_page(page)
 
with open("watermarked.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Extract Images

# Using pdfimages (poppler-utils)
pdfimages -j input.pdf output_prefix
 
# This extracts all images as output_prefix-000.jpg, output_prefix-001.jpg, etc.

Password Protection

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
 
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
 
for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)
 
# Add password
writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")
 
with open("encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Quick Reference

Task	Best Tool	Command/Code
Merge PDFs	pypdf	`writer.add_page(page)`
Split PDFs	pypdf	One page per file
Extract text	pdfplumber	`page.extract_text()`
Extract tables	pdfplumber	`page.extract_tables()`
Create PDFs	reportlab	Canvas or Platypus
Command line merge	qpdf	`qpdf --empty --pages ...`
OCR scanned PDFs	pytesseract	Convert to image first
Fill PDF forms	pdf-lib or pypdf (see FORMS.md)	See FORMS.md

Next Steps

For advanced pypdfium2 usage, see REFERENCE.md
For JavaScript libraries (pdf-lib), see REFERENCE.md
If you need to fill out a PDF form, follow the instructions in FORMS.md
For troubleshooting guides, see REFERENCE.md

npx skills add anthropics/skills --skill pdf

Documentation

SKILL.md

npx skills add anthropics/skills --skill pdf

Documentation

SKILL.mdView source

PDF Processing Guide

Overview

Quick Start

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
 
# Read a PDF
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
 
# Extract text
text = ""
for page in reader.pages:
    text += page.extract_text()

Python Libraries

pypdf - Basic Operations

Merge PDFs

from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader
 
writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.pdf", "doc3.pdf"]:
    reader = PdfReader(pdf_file)
    for page in reader.pages:
        writer.add_page(page)
 
with open("merged.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Split PDF

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
    writer = PdfWriter()
    writer.add_page(page)
    with open(f"page_{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as output:
        writer.write(output)

Extract Metadata

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
meta = reader.metadata
print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
print(f"Author: {meta.author}")
print(f"Subject: {meta.subject}")
print(f"Creator: {meta.creator}")

Rotate Pages

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
 
page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90)  # Rotate 90 degrees clockwise
writer.add_page(page)
 
with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction

Extract Text with Layout

import pdfplumber
 
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        text = page.extract_text()
        print(text)

Extract Tables

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages):
        tables = page.extract_tables()
        for j, table in enumerate(tables):
            print(f"Table {j+1} on page {i+1}:")
            for row in table:
                print(row)

Advanced Table Extraction

import pandas as pd
 
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    all_tables = []
    for page in pdf.pages:
        tables = page.extract_tables()
        for table in tables:
            if table:  # Check if table is not empty
                df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
                all_tables.append(df)
 
# Combine all tables
if all_tables:
    combined_df = pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True)
    combined_df.to_excel("extracted_tables.xlsx", index=False)

reportlab - Create PDFs

Basic PDF Creation

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
 
c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=letter)
width, height = letter
 
# Add text
c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
c.drawString(100, height - 120, "This is a PDF created with reportlab")
 
# Add a line
c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)
 
# Save
c.save()

Create PDF with Multiple Pages

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, PageBreak
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
 
doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf", pagesize=letter)
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
story = []
 
# Add content
title = Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title'])
story.append(title)
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
 
body = Paragraph("This is the body of the report. " * 20, styles['Normal'])
story.append(body)
story.append(PageBreak())
 
# Page 2
story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1']))
story.append(Paragraph("Content for page 2", styles['Normal']))
 
# Build PDF
doc.build(story)

Subscripts and Superscripts

Instead, use ReportLab's XML markup tags in Paragraph objects:

from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
 
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
 
# Subscripts: use <sub> tag
chemical = Paragraph("H<sub>2</sub>O", styles['Normal'])
 
# Superscripts: use <super> tag
squared = Paragraph("x<super>2</super> + y<super>2</super>", styles['Normal'])

For canvas-drawn text (not Paragraph objects), manually adjust font the size and position rather than using Unicode subscripts/superscripts.

Command-Line Tools

pdftotext (poppler-utils)

# Extract text
pdftotext input.pdf output.txt
 
# Extract text preserving layout
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt
 
# Extract specific pages
pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt  # Pages 1-5

qpdf

# Merge PDFs
qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf
 
# Split pages
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 6-10 -- pages6-10.pdf
 
# Rotate pages
qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1  # Rotate page 1 by 90 degrees
 
# Remove password
qpdf --password=mypassword --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf

pdftk (if available)

# Merge
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf
 
# Split
pdftk input.pdf burst
 
# Rotate
pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf

Common Tasks

Extract Text from Scanned PDFs

# Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image
import pytesseract
from pdf2image import convert_from_path
 
# Convert PDF to images
images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')
 
# OCR each page
text = ""
for i, image in enumerate(images):
    text += f"Page {i+1}:\n"
    text += pytesseract.image_to_string(image)
    text += "\n\n"
 
print(text)

Add Watermark

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
 
# Create watermark (or load existing)
watermark = PdfReader("watermark.pdf").pages[0]
 
# Apply to all pages
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
 
for page in reader.pages:
    page.merge_page(watermark)
    writer.add_page(page)
 
with open("watermarked.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Extract Images

# Using pdfimages (poppler-utils)
pdfimages -j input.pdf output_prefix
 
# This extracts all images as output_prefix-000.jpg, output_prefix-001.jpg, etc.

Password Protection

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
 
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
 
for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)
 
# Add password
writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")
 
with open("encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Quick Reference

Task	Best Tool	Command/Code
Merge PDFs	pypdf	`writer.add_page(page)`
Split PDFs	pypdf	One page per file
Extract text	pdfplumber	`page.extract_text()`
Extract tables	pdfplumber	`page.extract_tables()`
Create PDFs	reportlab	Canvas or Platypus
Command line merge	qpdf	`qpdf --empty --pages ...`
OCR scanned PDFs	pytesseract	Convert to image first
Fill PDF forms	pdf-lib or pypdf (see FORMS.md)	See FORMS.md

Next Steps

For advanced pypdfium2 usage, see REFERENCE.md
For JavaScript libraries (pdf-lib), see REFERENCE.md
If you need to fill out a PDF form, follow the instructions in FORMS.md
For troubleshooting guides, see REFERENCE.md